Methods of making pottery by hand have been known for years. Processes for making pottery vessels by hand are tedious and time consuming. Accordingly, methods for casting pottery using molds have been developed.
One method for making a vessel involves pouring the slip or liquefied clay into a one-piece mold and allowing the clay to set within the mold. Once the slip has stiffened, the excess slip may be trimmed away from the rim of the vessel while it remains in the mold. The clay remains in the mold until the vessel is beyond the leather-hard state. The leather-hard state is a point in the drying process wherein the clay has lost approximately 13-23% of its moisture, wherein the person may apply pressure without warping the form while adding elements to the vessel or trimming clay from the vessel. Once it has dried beyond the leather-hard state, the vessel is carefully removed from the mold. Once removed from the mold the vessel may be glazed and fired to finalize the process.
Recently, a hand-made vessel has been developed having a semi-enclosed extended foot which acts as a chamber. The chamber contains one or more clay pellets that make a noise when the vessel shakes. The hand-made vessel had a probability of cracking at the foot and/or along the bottom of the vessel. In addition, during the process of making the vessel the clay pellets may adhere to the clay of the vessel limiting the pellets free movement within the sound chamber of the vessel and therefore limiting the capabilities of the noise feature. If pellets adhere to the vessel, it may require additional steps to free the pellets within the void, which may further harm the development of the vessel. Finally, during use and/or cleaning of the vessel, water or other liquids would collect within the voided section. This liquid would muffle or otherwise interfere with the noise feature and has the potential to cause other negative results.